Create, maintain and reap the rewards of a social media strategy.

Abstract: This report analyzes the effects that social media marketing has on companies who choose to invest in a social media strategy. Previous research has looked at separate parts of a social media strategy, but no holistic view of the entire life cycle of a social media strategy has been created. Further, this report looks at what companies who choose to invest in a strategy gain from it in terms of different sources of business value. Advertising over digital media has increasingly taken market shares from more traditional advertising such as print, radio and TV. A large portion of this digital advertising is done through social media in the form of directing content at a specific target audience using the various social media platforms marketing algorithms. This increase in digital advertising is coupled by more companies choosing to create a social media presence. However, often have these social media presences failed to net any results due to a lack of understanding of the social media environment and how the consumers use the platforms. A case study was conducted on Marvelous, a Nordic digital agency specializing in social media. The case study also analyzed one of Marvelous’ clients who has invested in a social media strategy through them. The reason for this case study was to see how social media marketing is done in practice by a leading company within the industry. To complement the case study and get a less nuanced view of the development of a strategy and the results of it, qualitative interviews were held with other industry professionals who have worked with social media for several years. The results show that the life cycle of a social media strategy is made up of six stages: the pre-assessment stage, the strategy creation stage, the basics & hypotheses stage, the maturation & capitalization stage, the short-term evaluation stage and lastly the long-term evaluation stage. These different stages help companies in creating a strategy to guide social media efforts sustainably over a long period, leading to economical sustainability of the companies through granting advantages such as increased brand strength, increased sales and reaching a new consumer basis amongst other advantages. These advantages are gained while simultaneously strengthening the bond between consumer and company through the two-way communication that social media has enabled.